Radio telephone communication systems (such as second generation cordless telephone, or Digital European Cordless Telephone) comprise a plurality of base sites (also known as telepoints) and a plurality of radio telephones (also known as handsets). Taking second generation cordless telephone (CT2) as an example, the users of CT2 radio telephones communicate with users of other radio telephones or subscribers in a public or private switched telephone network (PSTN) via the several base sites. A large number of base sites is desirable in certain areas (such as shopping malls) to eliminate gaps in coverage by the base site network and to provide sufficient communication capacity. However, these base sites are generally not networked with each other and operate substantially independently from each other.
When a radio telephone user wishes to place a call, he or she causes the radio telephone unit to transmit a channel request signal. Since each base site is monitoring the channels of the CT2 system independently, the base site that grants the channel request may not necessarily be the one physically closest to the radio telephone unit transmitting the channel request signal. That may be a communicatiion detriment because the user may establish a link under ,weak signal conditions that would result in poor quality audio communications. Moreover, the user may move out of range of the base site causing the communication link to be dropped. On the other hand, if the communication link establishment area is decreased, the base site granting system access to the telephone user would facilitate the maintenance of a quality communication link allowing the telephone user to move over a greater area.
As part of the base site installation procedure, the base site needs to be adjusted for its surroundings (receive sensitivity, antenna angle of base site, RSSI threshold level for link establishment, etc.), to assure quality radio communication links to the user. The prior .art method of adjusting CT2 base sites has proven too slow and clumsy to be practical. The prior art method relied on the help of the central network controller operator to perform an interrogation of each of the base sites and then relay information back to a field engineer setting up the equipment, as the engineer was taking signal strength readings of the coverage area.
The goal of adjusting the base sites is to ensure that the user will communicate via the base site physically closest to him or her in order to have optimum communication links established. By establishing a communication link with the best site possible, the chances of having a superior signal quality communication link are increased.
Accordingly, a need exists for a base site and method to overcome the above problem.